Coal Minds

You smell the coal mines before you see them.

The acrid odor hits and then, just around the bend, the long arms of machinery and piles of black coal replace the snow-laced mountainside in southern West Virginia.

Another twist in the road and it's all gone. Just stray dogs and rows of coal camp houses, some signs for towns built around half of a main street. And churches. Lots of churches out here.

But the power of coal doesn't stop there. It's in dusty boots on the front porch, murals on local school walls, old photos of fathers and grandfathers who mined until their lungs died out. On bumper stickers and television ads where the good guys are the ones who protect your families and the mines, and the bad guys -- like the president -- are the ones who don't.

And the shadow that a once-thriving industry has cast on these towns is just as palpable in the cold Appalachian air. It's not a darkness from lack of human spirit, abundant in the hills and hollers, but it's a darkness nonetheless. One that has broken families and their bank accounts and the only thing they knew would provide.

"Don't write anything bad about us," people keep telling me. The ones who can work are working hard, and they've heard the statistics about them in the news. Neighbors replaced by numbers, dirty laundry aired out in print -- even if it isn't in their hands.

I say I will write what I hear and see, and just the facts. But it's increasingly clear that my profession so easily ignores the signs of light -- the woman who drives hours a day from town to town to share the knowledge she has, a vibrant mayor, a Welch resident who keeps a warehouse of food ready for anyone who is hungry. They bear that burden of bad news.

At the end of the day I sit in a bar with coal miners, nurses, people I've met throughout the day. We sing to the Goo Goo Dolls, we laugh at bad jokes, we lament our collective failure at trivia. And I remember last week I felt we were worlds apart. And feel lucky that today we're not. 

Ultima Pregunta - Brasil Day 3 & 4

photo courtesy of Diego Moreno
Fifty years ago the neighborhood of Ibicuitaba was flooded by sand, and the roofs peeked out. The wind eventually blew feet of red sand away, and only the church and one other building survived. Freitas, a local historian, looks like a surfer but speaks of Icapui's history as if he were another grandfather in his porch hammock. He takes us from the oldest -- the grave of a communist rebel, to the youngest, a secondary school.

Watching children climb trees and jump elastics (extreme double dutch) I can't tell who is descended from negra, branco or indio. And when we talk, I don't think they know either.Their hair is blonde, brown and black-- tightly curled or silky straight. Their features tell of their Portuguese great grandfathers, but sometimes of natives and sometimes of Angolan slaves.

Lynsey and I came to Brasil armed with textbook definitions of racism, but they dissolve in the playground noise within hours. When a young theater group pulls on fake afros, sequins skirts and performs a play on slavery and African ancestry, their painted faces, their voices transform from mischevious and shy to confident leaders of an ancient rebellion.

I interview some of the teenagers and soon our chatting turns to dancing, and I am learning the Forro, awkwardly watching my feet and trying not to step on the feet of my 15-year-old partner, Rodrigo. When we are done he ties a braided bracelet on my wrist.

I thought that I would run out of questions after back to back days of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. conversations, but my curiosity runs strong and I continue to discover the heart of the beach and hills.